The director for fair access and participation at the Office for
Students (OfS) will today call on universities and colleges to
work much more closely with schools to improve exam
results.
In the first of two major speeches in his new role this week,
John Blake will also say that universities and colleges should do
more to ensure that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are
supported through their studies to ensure they are well prepared
for life after graduation.
John Blake will address representatives of universities and
colleges at an OfS event today [Tuesday]. On Thursday, he will
speak at an Impetus event followed by a panel discussion and
Q&A session. In his speech on Tuesday, he is expected to
say:
“If we are at all concerned with equality of opportunity in
accessing higher education, we must be concerned with improving
attainment much, much earlier in life.
“The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers
opens almost as soon as they are born – it manifests in words
learnt before children enter nursery, the speed of achieving
fluency in reading in early primary, then vocabulary, numeracy,
oracy and more in upper primary, and secondary, it is clear in
statutory assessment results and especially GCSE outcomes.
“And despite clear and remarkable improvements in the quality of
schooling in the past twenty years, that gap remains wide open
throughout life.
“Universities and colleges have a moral duty to put their
shoulder to the wheel of improving that wider community they sit
within, and as both educational and civic institutions, improving
attainment in our schools is an essential part of that
work.
“But they should not assume this duty falls to them alone – of
course it doesn’t. We are asking providers to seek out strategic,
enduring, mutually-beneficial partnerships with schools and with
the third sector, all working together to contribute to this
work. But we are expecting providers to pull their weight on
pre-16 attainment, a challenge which affects us all.”
John Blake will also call for universities and colleges to do
more to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds, rather
than focus solely on their recruitment. He will tell
attendees:
“I have heard more often than I would like that students feel
their providers fell over themselves to bring them into higher
education, but interest in their needs trailed off the moment
they were through the door.
“Our data makes clear these are not isolated experiences.
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds have often overcome
significant obstacles to get to university. It cannot be right
that those students’ entry to higher education is used to polish
the laurels of providers who are consistently and persistently
not delivering on the quality of teaching and support those same
students need to thrive in higher education, and succeed after
graduation.”
He will highlight the work that the OfS is currently carrying out
on student outcomes, dismissing the argument that the OfS should
have lower expectations for universities and colleges with high
proportions of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. He is
expected to say:
“I absolutely reject any suggestion that there is a trade off
between access and quality. If providers believe the regulation
of quality justifies reducing their openness to those from
families and communities with less experience of higher education
or who have travelled less common, often more demanding, routes
to reach them, they should be ashamed of themselves.
“They should also be under no illusion that every power the OfS
has, including removing providers’ access to higher fees, will be
deployed to ensure providers abide by their responsibility to
improve access, participation and quality.”
Commenting on the speech, Leora Cruddas CBE, chief executive of
the Confederation of School Trusts said:
“It is fundamentally important that higher education providers
work with the schools sector to improve outcomes for young people
and create strong pathways into high education. Many universities
are developing their ‘civic university agreements.’ Likewise, CST
believes that School Trusts are civic structures. There is strong
synergy between the civic work of universities and that of school
trusts. This is an important moment for universities to build
strong relationships with the trust sector and embed these in
their civic university agreements to ensure wider social
value.”
Ed Vainker, Co-Founder of Reach Academy Feltham and CEO of the
Reach Foundation, said:
“Raising the attainment of young people early in life is
essential for improving their chances of accessing and succeeding
in higher education. We are already working closely with
universities to share knowledge and expertise in a joined up,
strategic way, and I am delighted to see that the OfS is pushing
for more to be done.”
